


long and seek after

by laskaris



Series: tales from the dreaming sea [4]
Category: Exalted
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, POV Second Person, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 18:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7399450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laskaris/pseuds/laskaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before his Exaltation, Iseul Lien entertains one last client, the most unusual man he's ever met. </p><p>It doesn't quite go the way either of them expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	long and seek after

Your father’s instructions regarding this particular client - Tsiuri, or so he calls himself- had been clear: please him in whatever manner he requires, do whatever he wishes, and keep his eyes on you. He hadn’t been clear as to _why_ this man, this merchant who deals in rare books, is so important to catch, but you are observant and can put the pieces together for yourself. 

You’ve done your best, soft words, gentle voice, and poured him wine, but he doesn’t seem interested. Instead, he reclines on a cushion, long legs curled beneath him, ill at ease: it’s written in the lines of his body and how startlingly violet eyes glare at the untouched cup of wine in his hand. You don’t know what you’ve done wrong, but -

“Ah, if I’ve done something to offend you-” you begin to apologize, but he cuts you off with a quick motion of his hand, his eyes and face briefly softening. 

“It’s not you,” Tsiuri says, his voice clear and tenor, and far milder than you would have expected from how intensely he glares at his cup. There’s something in him both strangely old and strangely young. He looks to be somewhere between thirty and thirty-three, tall and well-formed, but you’re having a difficult time fixing his features in your memory whenever you glance away from him. Except for the length of his hair, long and black and severely tied back. “ _You’re_ lovely, but I dislike being bribed.” 

He’s a strange one, this man: there’s something in him almost too upright and unbending, though it had been well-concealed throughout his dealings with your father, and you wonder all over again how he had managed to prove himself so indispensable. You fold your hands in your lap, demurely, lashes lowering to conceal your eyes. 

“Bribery, my lord?” you ask, carefully, though you know what Tsiuri means: if, _when_ , he feels it necessary, your father will offer his courtesans to whatever ally he seeks to court, a sweet offer to sway the mind and seal a hard bargain, and this is far from the first time you’ve been offered like this to some powerful man. 

“I know what I’m being offered, Iseul Lien.” Tsiuri says, finally sipping at his wine after scowling at the full cup another time “You’re more than simply the jewel of this house, or even this city, and your father undervalues you. Giving you to _me_ , when princes or kings would desire your hand?”

 _(Fit to be the consort of lords, princes, kings. So beautiful and beloved, the gentle, fragile flower that you seem to be, that weaker-willed men would draw swords and kill to have you, and at least one has tried. Bitter words that never come to voice: “does this not please you”?)_

Instead, you bow your head, and think you understand why your father so values him and his alliance: he might deal in whatever goods he does, but more importantly, and much more valuably,Tsiuri deals in information. Your father chooses to reveal, or not, you as his son depending on which he believes would bring him most profit at the time, but he almost never uses your family name regardless. 

“Ah...you’re very well-informed,” you murmur, lowering your head for a moment. “And very bold.” 

Tsiuri snorts, and his lips curve upward wryly, a drop of rich red wine clinging to the corner of his mouth. “That’s the kindest description I’ve ever heard. ‘Blunt’ would be more accurate.” 

You can’t help it: something about his straightforward, tactless delivery is somehow amusing, somehow the funniest thing that you’ve heard in a long time, and you laugh, a brief, breathy sound. Tsiuri looks surprised for a moment, as if you’d caught him off-guard: instinctively, you begin to apologize, but he shakes his head, sharply. 

“Don’t apologize.” he says. “I liked that.” 

“...ah...?” you’d learned never to be straightforward in anything that you say or ask, always hedging your words. “What do you mean?” 

Tsiuri leans forward, propping his chin up in his hand. “It’s a glimpse of _you_.” he says, simply, and you glance away for a moment. You’d half-dreamed in darkness and rain of the possibility of a man wanting to see you, rather than your facade, but now that one is sitting in front of you and actually trying, you don’t know what to do. “I’ve been here for a week, and I’m tired of pretty boys who are trying to be what they think I want. I want to see _you.”_

_(other than try to see him, yourself: you can tell that he is a man of nearly as many secrets as you, for all that he calls himself blunt and has a sharp edge to his tongue. Pieces that don’t quite fit together.)_

“Ah, I see.” you say, gently, lacing your fingers together. You’re still uncertain of what to do: showing even fragments of your true self is vulnerability, more vulnerable than you’ve ever been, and the very idea scares you, down deep, even with the half-dreams you’d barely considered. But your fear wars with your own desire to please _(because you only have ever been worthy if you are useful_ ) and your father’s command, knowing what this man wants of you. 

After a moment, Tsiuri sits up and smiles at you: one corner of his lips is still curved upward wryly, but there’s something gentle in his smile. “You don’t have to give me everything of yourself. I know it must be difficult for you, so only give me what you _can,_ even if it is just a song you like that you’d never sing for anyone else, or your favorite poetry that you’d never read to a client.” 

“...is that all?” you ask, carefully. “I’ll, ah, try.” 

Tsiuri’s smile widens. “And that’ll be enough.” he says, and drains the last of his wine, dropping the cup onto the table. You reach instinctively to refill it, just as his hand covers the cup. 

“Would you like a cup of tea instead?” you offer, since he clearly doesn’t want any more wine: the most sober any of your patrons have been in a while, it seems. 

“If you make yourself one as well.” the wry expression is back on his face, as he reclines again on the cushion. 

“Of course.” you murmur, demurely. This is somewhat more back on familiar ground, and you gather the things that you need for tea as well as two cups. By now, the motions are so familiar that you don’t need to watch your hands to see what you’re doing, and you hand him his tea first, though he doesn’t take a sip until you’re cradling your cup in your hand. “Is it to your liking?” 

Tsiuri’s mouth twists, wry and sardonic. “This is much better than I ever hoped to have. I’m hopeless at making tea - I make a new mistake every time I try.” 

You shouldn’t laugh, especially not at a client’s ineptitude, but you can’t help it; you do anyway, the same brief, breathy sound, and Tsiuri looks pleased, his mouth quirking up. “There,” he says, quietly, and takes another long sip of his tea. “You should laugh more - it becomes you.” 

“Thank you,” you murmur, eyes firmly fixed on your teacup as you take a sip, more to keep your mouth busy than to actually drink it. 

“I cannot, and will not, tell you not to be sad,” Tsiuri says, a long moment of silence later. There is something strange in his voice - anger? Bitterness? Something almost like helplessness - “But you should take what moments of joy you can.” 

“Do you, ah, enjoy giving advice?” you ask, carefully, after another moment. “You could likely make a living from it.” 

Tsiuri shrugs. “Sometimes, when I feel like it.” he says. “Never advice on love, though. At least not for relationships people want to keep.” 

“Never, truly?” 

“I’m better at ending others’ relationships than I am at _sustaining_ them.” he remarks, wryly. 

“A talent, truly.” you murmur, eyes lowered and your gaze firmly on the cup in your hands. 

Tsiuri snorts and drinks more of his tea. “That’s not how I would describe it.” he says, but there’s still that pleased gentleness in his smile. You don’t say anything for a long moment, let the silence hang warm between you, and then his fingers brush your face as he pushes loose strands of hair out of your eyes. His fingers are sword-callused but his touch soft and lingering, and you close your eyes for a moment, turn your face into the caress. You won’t pretend this is more than it is, nothing more than a brief gentle touch from an unusually kind patron, but it’s nice and you have always been starved for affection, however fleeting. 

You only allow yourself to enjoy the moment for the space of a breath or two before you open your eyes and smile at him, serene, as he lowers his hand, expression twisting wryly. “Would you like me to sing for you now?” 

“Go on,” he says, as he picks up his cup again. 

You take a moment to hum to yourself, trying to remember the melody and get your voice warmed up, before you begin singing. 

_“You are an ocean of waves, weaving a dream...”_

The Old Realm comes to your lips easily enough, though the melody is less sure on your tongue: this song is one you’d taught yourself, from old, old books and sheet music so fragile you almost couldn’t touch it for fear that it would fall to pieces beneath your touch. “ _Thou seek the light with an outstretched hand...to restore the world, cut ‘way the seams...”_

You watch Tsiuri’s reaction even as you sing: while he’s still reclining on his cushion, his posture has stiffened slightly, almost imperceptibly, eyes narrowing. He’s clearly familiar with the song, perhaps even understands Old Realm: _that’s_ unusual. Mayhaps he is a scholar, in addition to being a merchant and information broker? _“Join in our prayer, in our song of birthrights and love...Come the sun, illuminate the sky...Pray that we may quell the dark - Light take the throne...Lost in thoughts all alone...”_

“That’s a very old song.” he says, after a moment, when you’re done singing. “How did you learn it?” 

“Ah...from one of my father’s old books.” you murmur, softly. There’s something strange and intent in his gaze, like he’s trying to look through you. He’d been trying to stare through you before, but there’s something _else_ in his eyes now, that’s unsettling. “I taught myself.” 

“I see.” Tsiuri says, and takes a sip of his tea, relaxing fractionally. “There’s another version of that song, just as old.” 

“If I may ask...are you a scholar?” you ask him, lowering your eyes. Tsiuri shrugs, broad shoulders shifting beneath his fine robes. 

“Among other things. Though of course my Old Realm isn’t as good as yours.” he says, setting his empty cup down. This time, he lets you refill it, watching as you whisk the tea with practiced motions before you hand it back to him. “I’m not much of a singer, especially not compared to _you_ , but if you’d like to hear a few lines, I could try.” 

You don’t know what to say for a moment: you aren’t used to a patron wanting to sing to you, unless it was some terrible attempt at love poetry that he’d composed himself or had someone compose for him, nevermind a song that had been one of your interests. You don’t know what to say, but he’s silent, just drinking his tea and giving you time and space to consider, which is gift enough. 

“If it wouldn’t be, ah, too much trouble.” you finally say, and Tsiuri lowers his cup from his lips. 

“I wouldn’t have offered if it would have been trouble, Lien.” he says, looking right at you. You lower your eyes, again, and can feel yourself blushing faintly around the edges, with nothing artful about it. It’s not a feeling that you’re used to, and you aren’t certain what to think of it, though you’re saved from having to consider it too closely when he sings, pleasant and on-key - and you can tell that he’s holding back, actually far more skilled than he’s letting on. You revise your estimation: wry, sarcastic, full of pieces that don’t fit and hidden skill, which only contributes to his mystery. “ _The path you walk on belongs to destiny, just let it flow...all of your joy and pain will fall like the tide, let it flow...life is not just filled with happiness, nor sorrow...even the thorn in your heart, in time it may become a rose...”_

His Old Realm is rather good, much better than you expected: clearly he’s a _dedicated_ scholar, in addition to his information brokering. You know what poems to read to him, what book to fetch from the shelves in your room: perhaps _those_ will pique his interest further. 

“Thank you,” you murmur, your eyes fixed on your cooling tea. “That was lovely.” 

“You don’t need to thank me.” Tsiuri says, his expression twisting even more dryly, and drinks the rest of his tea. The dregs linger in the bottom of his cup: you’ve told fortunes before to the odd client or two, but the omens in their tea leaves mean nothing in fate-shrouded Champoor, where heaven cannot reach. Nothing more than lies and pretty words, and even if they had meant anything here, there’s nothing to be found in his cup, no hint of fate or fortune. 

You make Tsiuri another cup of tea, and hand it to him, your fingers brushing his in a deliberately calculated fashion and pretend not to notice when he clutches his teacup a little too tightly. 

“You wished to hear some poetry?” you ask after a moment, gently, and watches as he nods, drinking his tea. “A moment, please.” 

It doesn’t take long to walk into your bedroom to get the book, though you put a little sway in your hips as you walk away. Not _too_ much, not enough to make what you’re doing obvious, but _just_ enough to keep Tsiuri’s eyes on you _(and you can hear him briefly inhaling his tea)._

“Are you alright?” you call to him as you carefully pick the book you want off the shelf and begin to walk back into your sitting room.

“Yes,” he says, after a moment and a brief fit of coughing, as you emerge back into the room, but he waves off your concern. His gaze focuses on the book in your hand, and he raises one slender eyebrow. “Come sit by me, then, if we’re going to share the book.” 

Instead, you carefully settle yourself in Tsiuri’s lap, can feel how firm his well-muscled thighs are beneath you. He doesn’t say a word, but you can hear the brief, surprised intake of breath, can see how his fingers tighten on the cushion. 

“Ah, is something wrong?” you ask, quietly, though you’re fairly certain what he’s surprised about. He’s careful to keep his hands to himself, the fingers of his left hand resting next to your hip but he doesn’t touch. 

“Nothing’s wrong.” Tsiuri replies, his voice calm though not quite even, and gestures to the book in your lap. “Go on. I’d like to hear what poetry you enjoy.” 

“Of course.” you murmur, and open the book, to a well-worn page that you’re familiar with. “ _Stars around the beautiful moon/hide back their luminous form/whenever all full she shines on the earth.”_

 _“Silvery.”_ Tsiuri adds the last fragmentary word of the poem: he’s clearly familiar, and confirms it a moment later. “The Nightingale. The greatest poet of the Old Realm...and all we have left are fragments.” for a moment, regret clouds his eyes and turns his wry smile even more bitter. You offer him the book without a word, and he takes it. “ _Dead you will lie/and never memory of you/will there be nor desire into the aftertime - for you do not share in the roses/of Pieria, but invisible too in Saturn’s house/you will go your way among dim shapes. Having been breathed out.”_

After a moment, he passes your book back to you, and you open it to another page, trying to find an appropriate poem to respond with. _“Someone will remember us/I say/even in another time.”_ You hand the book back to him, and watch as he flips through, and opens to another page, before he passes the book back to you once he’s done reading. 

You’ve never done something like this with a client before, and while it’s strange, it’s also enjoyable, even as the poems slide more towards the lyrical love songs that the Nightingale favored writing and which comprise the vast majority of her remaining body of work. Tsiuri’s hand is warm on your side, half-resting on your hip, but he makes no move to touch you otherwise, and you welcome the brief moments of respite even as you carefully choose verses that slide towards flirtation. Your book falls to the floor, the next time that you pass it to him, but you make no move to pick it up. 

_(Keep him distracted. Keep his eyes on you. Please him in whatever manner that he requires.)_

_“Sweet mother, I cannot work the loom/I am broken with longing for a boy by slender Venus.”_ Tsiuri half-sings the line, simultaneously intense and sarcastically clever, and you laugh, briefly, because you can’t help it, there’s just something _funny_ in the combination. He smiles, without the wry twist to his lips, severe beauty softening for a moment. 

“ _Nor/desire/but all at once/blossom/desire/took delight.”_ You’ve always wondered what the complete verses must have been like, an age of the world ago, when the Nightingale walked the shores of her island and sang, but only fragments remain, pieces you try to stitch together into some faint echo of the original. 

Tsiuri’s lips twist for a moment. “ _But me you have forgotten/or you love some man more than me.”_ he says, eyes fixed firmly on you. 

_“I long and seek after.”_ you murmur, and glance up at him through your lashes, a deliberately demure invitation as you move and resettle yourself in his lap, deliberately shifting the way your weight falls. Tsiuri’s left hand is still warm on your hip, as his other hand comes up, fingers running through the heavy fall of your hair, almost achingly gentle. 

“Do you?” he asks, quietly, deep violet eyes fixed on yours, his pupils blown wide and glassy with arousal and already half-hard beneath you, though he doesn’t move his left hand.You can tell how much he wants, how hungry he is for you beneath his calm, tempered exterior, and you take a moment to breathe, to pause. Tsiuri has taken such pains to be gentle: this won’t be too bad with him, you think, and he sighs. “ _O beautiful o graceful one.”_ he murmurs, lifting his hand from your hair to gently cup your cheek, broad, sword-callused fingers warm against your skin, before he lets his hand fall and shakes his head. 

“As you wish,” you whisper, lowering your eyes - you know how much he desires you, and had played to that, and yet he had still refused, the one man that you can remember who was ultimately immune to your charms. You slide off his lap, carefully, and are absolutely uncertain of what else you could have possibly done. There must have been something more you could have done. “Is there nothing else I may do for you?” you ask, after a moment, watching him climb to his feet: you were supposed to please him, and you’ve failed. 

The man says nothing for a long moment, and you’re absolutely certain that you’ve somehow ruined this beyond repair. You open your mouth to apologize, but he gently hushes you with a finger to your lips. 

“May I have a kiss, before I go?” Tsiuri asks. 

You’re surprised that he even asks for this small favor, that he even asks instead of taking. 

“Of course,” you murmur, and long fingers slide beneath your chin, tilt your head up: he’s making you look at him, violet eyes fixed on yours. This close, you can appreciate fully how unusual their color is, even though you look in the mirror and see purple eyes every day. His are clear and deep, the color of constellations you’ve never seen and have only read about in books. 

“Lien,” he says, gently, though there’s the well-controlled bite of anger underneath his words: it’s not directed at you, but you shiver anyway. “I’ve already made my decision for tomorrow. If you don’t want to kiss me, it won’t affect my choice in any way.” 

“Ah, truly?” you ask, though his sincerity is clear in every word. You want to hear him say it: you want to see what his response will be. 

“Yes.” he says, and lets you go, and that simple action, more than anything else, sways you to make your choice. He didn’t have to let you go, and he could have taken the kiss he wanted, or anything else as well: it would have been his right as a patron, after all, but he didn’t. 

“Go on,” you tell him, quietly, and don’t look away as he bends to kiss you, lips warm on yours and hands steady on your shoulders: he tastes of cinnamon and green tea, and the faint, faint remains of rich, tart red wine. You’ve been kissed a lot, in the last three years, but this is the first you’ve actually enjoyed, and it’s not entirely because he’s gentle and takes his time, coaxing you to open for him like you’re an inexperienced virgin who has never been kissed instead of an experienced courtesan. It’s nice, and you like it. 

Tsiuri breaks the kiss and smiles, mouth turning upward wryly: a hint of bitterness, though he kisses so sweetly. “Thank you.” he says, though really, shouldn’t you be thanking _him_? “I’m afraid you won’t remember me for very long, Lien, but I wanted to leave you a bit of sweetness before I went.” 

You don’t know what he means about not remembering him for very long, because your memory has always been clear, but you lower your eyes. “Goodbye,” you say, softly, because you, not for the first time, don’t know what to say. “And, ah, good luck.”

“I think I should be the one saying that to you.” Tsiuri says, wry bitterness leaking through, before he turns back, framed in your doorway in the last moments before he steps through and closes it behind him. “ _Even the thorn in your heart, in time, may become a rose._ All things pass and all things end. Even this.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- three guesses what "Tsiuri" actually is and the first two don't count. A further clue: the name he's using means "heaven" or "celestial" (originally a Georgian name, translated to Exalted is probably from the North somewhere.)  
> \- song references: Lien is singing AmaLee's cover of "Lost in Thoughts All Alone", while Tsiuri sings the actual version from Fire Emblem: Fates because I am a huge nerd who can't write his own lyrics. For a good reference to what Tsiuri sounds like when he sings, look up Matthew Mercer's version of "Lost in Thoughts All Alone" from the Heirs of Fate DLC. (Shigure in general is a good reference for Tsiuri's voice in general tbh).  
> \- all the poems Tsiuri and Lien are reading are fragments by Sappho of Lesbos, from the _if not, winter_ translation by Anne Carson, though all references to Greek gods have been changed to their Exalted counterparts. "The Nightingale" is, of course, an Exalted version of Sappho, who I translated into the setting as a First Age Solar only known by her sobriquet.  
>  \- this fic was originally planned to be porn. It didn't work out that way, though I'm writing an alt scene which _is_ porn on the premise of if Tsiuri had failed that Socialize + Integrity check. I may post it when I'm done. I may not post it.


End file.
